Microsoft Azure users hit by 300% rise in cyber-attacks

Trojans found to be the most common form of malicious software encountered.

A 300% rise in cyber-attacks has been seen by Microsoft cloud users over the past year.

That’s according to the 22nd volume of Microsoft’s Security Intelligence report, which found that a large result of the compromises came due to issues with passwords.

The report said: “A large majority of these compromises are the result of weak, guessable passwords and poor password management, followed by targeted phishing attacks and breaches of third-party services.”

Additional findings revealed that there was also a year-over-year increase in attempted account sign-ins from malicious IP address, the figure rose by 44% from Q1 2016 to the same period this year.

The US and China were found to be the main sources of the attacks, with 32.5% and 35.1% respectively, with the report finding that the IP addresses for the majority of attacks on Azure came from these two countries.

Although topics such as Ransomware typically steal the headlines, the impact is felt is felt differently across the globe. The likes of Italy, Hungary and Spain all came in at around 0.14%, while the US was at 0.02%.

“Microsoft recommends that victims of ransomware infections not pay the so- called fine,” the report said. “Ransomware is distributed by malicious attackers, not legitimate authorities, and paying the ransom is no guarantee that the attacker will restore the affected computer to a usable state.”

Trojans are the most common form of malicious software, with the Win32/Xadupi trojan being the most commonly encountered.